Life is full of mysteries. Do aliens exist? Is there life after death? And of course, where do those lost socks go when you can't find them in the washing machine?
I can happily reveal that through extensive research, I've discovered the answer to that lattermost problem. Those missing socks have been located. Turns out that when a sock goes missing in the washing machine, it's actually been recruited by inGenius Prep to work as part of an army of sock puppets pretending (1) to be interested in inGenius Prep, and (2) to have used inGenius Prep's services and been very satisfied.
I can happily reveal that through extensive research, I've discovered the answer to that lattermost problem. Those missing socks have been located. Turns out that when a sock goes missing in the washing machine, it's actually been recruited by inGenius Prep to work as part of an army of sock puppets pretending (1) to be interested in inGenius Prep, and (2) to have used inGenius Prep's services and been very satisfied.
inGenius Prep's "Marketing Department"
Here's how it works:
1. Puppet #1 visits web site and posts message on the discussion board, like this one posted by the puppet named "D14", interested in medical school admissions:
"I've been looking for a good application consulting company, and my cousin recommended inGenius Prep. Has anybody heard anything about it?"
Note that Puppet #1 joined that community on Thursday June 27 at 10:52am, and the post was made that same day only twelve minutes later. Note also that this is Puppet #1's only post ever made on this site - it came here solely to pretend to be interested in inGenius Prep's services.
2. Puppet #2, in this example called "GBG2014", visits the same site and answers the question:
"Actually, yeah I have used their services. They were really helpful and gave me useful advice and constructive criticism on my application. Their counselors are from top med schools so they know what they're talking about. They are also less expensive than other companies, which for me was a huge plus. I am planning on using them again (hopefully) for interview prep.
I just found out about them during the application process, but they also offer services to help craft your med school candidacy while you're still an undergrad. My little sister, who is going to be a sophomore, is going to use them for that.
Hope that helps."
I just found out about them during the application process, but they also offer services to help craft your med school candidacy while you're still an undergrad. My little sister, who is going to be a sophomore, is going to use them for that.
Hope that helps."
Note that Puppet #2 joined the site Monday July 8 2013 at 12:57pm, and made its one and only post on that site eleven minutes later.
Neither puppet is ever seen or heard from on that site ever again. The sole purpose of the visit was to ask about inGenius Prep, then give a glowing review of inGenius Prep.
But wait! Puppet "D14" is evidently not just interested in medical admissions; he's also interested in law school too. This is one smart puppet!
Over on a law school admissions site, Puppet #1, "D14" (and that's some lazy sock puppetting when they can't even be bothered to change the name of the puppet), asks the following:
"I've been looking around for an application consulting company to help me with my personal statement and other application stuff this fall, and a friend of mine recommended inGenius Prep. Has anybody heard anything about them?"
This time, the readers figure out that "D14" is merely the sock-covered hand of inGenius Prep, and quickly tells "D14" to shut up and move on. Note once again the puppet MO - join, post question about inGenius Prep just minutes after joining, then never appear again.
I appreciate viral marketing, and I appreciate trying to drum up support for a new business online. But do so on the merits of the company, not by providing fake reviews of your own services and pretending that you have satisfied clients. Remember what we talked about recently, David? How all these little things point to one conclusion: "SCAM!!!"
David, my offer still stands. If you can provide me with anything to counter any point I have made about your company, I will publish it right here and eat my own words. I have offered you the chance to give examples of your success stories, your proven record of helping students truly get into schools they would not have been able to otherwise, and any shred of evidence whatsoever that your company is providing value in any form.
I have still heard nothing from you.
I guess it's hard for you to type with socks on your hands.
David Mainiero - "I'm shocked!"
Ouch!
ReplyDeleteThis is.. and I know people might say we've over-used the word.. hilarious.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, Beat a Dead Horse, Much?
Third and finally, nothing good will come from this. Nothing.
"I'm socked by these awwegations! Twuely! Socked!"
ReplyDeleteHilarious.
Oh look! They even have the now-token white sock in the department. How very 2013!
DeleteThis is suppose to be a law school scam blog not a vehicle for your own personal smear campaign. Keep with the mission, stay on topic and show a little class.
ReplyDeleteCalm down, it's just poking fun at something silly. We can't all take everything 100% seriously all the time.
Delete$3749 ("deluxe") or $150/hr. ("custom"), whichever amount you are stupid enough to pay, to assist you in crafting a personal statement for a college or law school application, provide standardized testing tutor referrals to their friends (who will charge you even more money), and maybe take your phone calls and answer questions about the application process (even though you can find those answers for free online, or in the application materials, or by calling the school). I hope that their only clients are footwear.
ReplyDeleteIs 3800 really that bad when you're going to be out 250k by enrolling in a law school?
DeleteGreat tie in to one of life's great mysteries. Apparently, Mainiero thought he was a genius with this sock campaign.
ReplyDeleteGreat post. Major companies do this same thing in various ways. Now, even our CIA (or was it FBI) is using this strategy for homeland security in what they call "Psy-ops" to deal with political dissent.
ReplyDeleteSorry to interrupt this thread, but you guys gotta see this.
ReplyDeleteFrom the PrawfsBlawg. "Just back from two phenomenal sessions at the stunning villas of the European University Institute in Florence: Gender Quotas at the Global Level: Towards Parity Governance?" (Darren Rosenblum Pace Law School)
Wow! This bottom feeder had an expense paid vacation to Florence, Italy during the school year. Is it any wonder law school tuitions are so high. Meanwhile his students at Pace had a happy meal at McDonalds and they will be paying back their loans for the rest of their lives. Ever hear of skype?
Dude, Nando needs to re-do Pace Law Skool and paste the above in the entry of the body. This just confirms what the scambloggers write about when they talk of the profs living high on the hog on sabbaticals, etc. and this type of crap.
DeleteThe bottom part of your comment is dead-on. And the pig has the stupidity / audacity to post about it on a blog vs. skype. Like, broadcast to the entire world about your oh-so-wonderful trip, paid for by that sweet Fed. Loan Money while your impoverished students eat their "grand" evening meal at Micky D's.
I mean.. O'RLY!?? That's fair, right?
This is ridiculous. Law students shouldn't have to pay for trips to Italy.
DeleteCall me Naive. I have been practicing forever, and never realized that Law Profs get to travel to Europe on a Schools dime. Is this true that Profs have their expenses paid? Why would a Law School do so? My Dad was in education and took Sabbaticals, but he was on his own during those periods from a financial point of view. If law schools do pay for these vacations, to what end? ow does that help the Schools prestige, or the profs teaching ability? I don't get it.
ReplyDeleteIn the legal world, anyway, I believe they are called "summer research stipends." Or, they "volunteer" to go on the study abroad program and lead other students. In any event, they do what is necessary to bridge the summer gap.
DeleteChances are your Dad was in a department where money was less flush and the rules were consequnetly different. Law Schools have to put on the airs of "preftige", however, and this is one way they do so.
Actually, that's a fairly modest sort of thing for an academic. My T6 brother-in-law professor takes about 3 or 4 "research trips" abroad a year on his student's dime. He often takes one or more of his kids along for "intellectual enrichment." He's been to Israel, Japan, Germany, Russia, etc.
DeleteHe's loving life. He did the whole "clerk for a Court of Appeals judge for 2 years" and has maybe a year or two (I forget, but it isn't much) of practice at Biglaw. Now he pulls in at least $300K/year just for teaching a couple of classes. I know roughly how much he makes because he's at a public university and they publish salary information. He doesn't publish much anymore, has great health insurance and a fantastic defined-benefit pension. Last year he bought a 54 foot yacht. You could go around the world on that thing. It has Raymarine stuff, GPS, a big-ass diesel engine, really nice flat screen TVs everywhere, the works.
By way of contrast, I went to a T50 toilet and graduated in the top 29%. This was back in 2008. I couldn't get any interviews at OCI. I quickly saw the writing on the wall and spent my 2L/3L years doing my absolute dammdest to get an internship or part-time job of any kind. Unfortunately, I couldn't land a job and I spent the next two years after LS working oddjob after oddjob. I did some doc review, I worked as a handyman, I cold-called law firms (that was the absolute worst) and generally tried to make ends meet with my young son.
It's not just that law school is an outright swindle for 90% of students. It is. It's not just that these "professors" continue to ruin lives when they know they are screwing over young people. The terrible employment data has been out there for years and years.
It's the fact that they continue to lie baldfacedly, continue to paint the law as a noble profession where your goals are to help others, do pro bono work, save the world, etc. I think that's the part of the scam that rankles the most for me. The utter hypocrisy.
I would rather clean up the floors at a peepshow than shake hands with one of these reptiles. I have more respect for Don Lapre than any of these vermin. There is a special spot reserved in hell for these blood-sucking leeches.
1:50 -- The Top 6 law schools are Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Chicago, Columbia, and NYU. None of them are public. So the claim that your brother in law is at a T-6 public university does not appear to be possible.
Delete2:42- he means that his brother-in-law went to law school at a top 6 school and now teaches at a public law school.
Delete@2:42, he went to law school in the late 1990s. I believe back then his school was one of the top 6- university of Chicago.
Delete1:50 - Please explain how you have a T6 brother-in-law professor of law, and he dislikes you enough to not bother hooking you up with even a mediocre position in city government or something. What's going on there?
Delete2:42, glad you're bothered by the important things. Why does a potential historical ranking ambiguity cause outrage but the entire scam highlighted in the comment seem perfectly acceptable to you? "Ignore the scam! Someone might have misranked the top six law schools!"
DeletePlease go away, Leiter.
DeleteinGenius Prep Scam
ReplyDeleteSo, Nancy Leong gets a free trip to a seaside resort in Hawaii to talk about discrimination, and Darren Rosenblum gets a free trip to an Italian villa to talk about discrimination. All of this is paid for by law students' tuition. Who is getting discriminated against? Brian Tamanaha was right about the hypocritical liberals.
ReplyDeleteStop being racist towards her Hawaiian ancestry.
DeleteShe might (pretend to) be a feminist, but we are scaminists, fighting to protect the victims of the law school scam, a scam that affects men and women, black and white, but all disproportionately poorer than their successful counterparts.
DeleteDon't let any scamming professor hide behind a veil of superficial do-goodery like our fake feminist friend Leong. Whatever good her scholarship brings to the table is vastly outweighed by the very real, quantifiable harm she is doing directly to the lives of grads of her law school.
There's a nice picture of the Tuscan villa here http://prawfsblawg.blogs.com/prawfsblawg/2013/11/gender-quotas-at-the-global-level-toward-parity-governance-.html. I post it so that Pace students will see what their tuition is buying. Very beautiful.
ReplyDeletePace students should be proud. After all, if you are going to end up spending the rest of your life clicking that little button during doc review so that you can make those loan payments and everyday thank heaven that you got your law degree, at least you can be happy that someone, somewhere, is having a nice life because of you. If you can't be successful, at least you can be altruistic.
DeleteI just checked out the stats at Pace's website and it says the median salary for the 230 students who graduated last spring was $57.5 K "based upon 67 responses." That's right, out of 230 grads, only 67 provided salary information. No doubt the other 163 grads are pulling down $160 K at white shoe firms but declined to give salary info because they didn't want to brag.
DeleteThe Pace professor is claiming that the European University Institute in Florence picked up the full tab for his trip.
ReplyDeleteHe did present a paper at the conference - whether you believe that EUI picked up all the expenses is up to you.